


It's a Secret

by Missy



Series: How Green The Grass [3]
Category: Burn Notice
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Baggage, Family, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Humor, Kid Fic, Multi, Parenthood, Polyfidelity, Romance, Unexpected Visitors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-19
Updated: 2014-02-19
Packaged: 2018-01-13 01:05:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1207102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam, Mike and Fiona endure a visit from Nate, who brings Ruth and Charlie with him.  Michael cleans out his mother’s garage – and his emotional closet, and Sam and Fi take Ruth, Charlie and Liam to a spa…where they promptly encounter diamond thieves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Secret

**Author's Note:**

> Written for KidFicStory in '14. Part of the How Green The Grass series; please check out the previous chapters in the series before you read this one. Thank you to NickyGabriel for making the art for this piece.

“Liam, stop climbing the wall.” Sam wrapped his arms around the kid’s waist and literally pulled him away from the living room’s exterior, cradling the two-year old against his chest. Naturally, Liam responded to all of Sam’s frantic hubbub by giggling in a nearly demonic way.

Sam would have given a shudder if he gave it deeper thought. The kid was Fiona incarnate sometimes, especially when he wanted something shiny and far out of his reach. “Stop it, buddy. Understand?”

Wisely, Liam nodded. “Okay, Papa Sam, I love you.” 

“Okay, gimmie a kiss.” Sam was rewarded with a grape jelly-coated kiss, and he gave Liam a gentle headbutt before carrying him toward the bathroom. “Time to wash up. Your mama and daddy are gonna be home soon, and we’re gonna go out to dinner!”

“CARLITOOOS!” shouted Liam, headbutting Sam back.

“No, not Carlitos,” he sighed, flicking on the water on and standing Liam on a stool. He reached for the tube of bright pink bubblegum-scented soap Fiona swore she bought specifically just to ensure Liam would wash his hands more. Sam was quite sure she’d really bought it because she liked how it smelled – she often came to bed smelling of the stuff from head to toe. Sam had acclimated to its cloying sweetness quite easily – hell, sometime he and Mike nibbled her like a piece of big red until she let out a squeal…

“Too much!” Liam shouted, and Sam winced when he noticed how much of the gel he’d dumped out into the boys’ palm. 

“Geez - sorry, kiddo,” he said, and returned the recapped bottle to its correct place. Then he turned toward the spigot and scraped some of the soap into his own hand and started gently scrubbing Liam’s hands together under the warm spray. This helped Sam clean his own grubby mitts in the process – soon they were squeaky-clean and completely ready to change.

Liam was at an odd age; too old to be helped with his clothes and yet completely unable to put on his own pants. This time he put them on backwards twice before Sam intervened. The shoes and shirt were a breeze; by the time Mike and Fi came through the front door they were sparkling in their cleanliness. 

The baby ran directly to his mother, little legs churning him quickly toward her embrace. Fiona managed to catch her son in mid-leap and squeeze his squawking and giggling form to her breast. “And how are you doing, kipper?”

“ICE CREAM, mama!” said Liam, with great meaning. She raised an eyebrow at Sam and hugged her son before releasing him to his biological father. 

Sam pecked Fiona’s lips…and managed to get in a quick squeeze to her ass. She recoiled just enough to give him a smarmy raise of the eyebrow. “Rude.” And then wrinkled her nose at him. 

“Have mercy on a horny man, baby,” he replied, and she smacked his hip.

“Enough with you.” She patted shoulder harness. “I need to powder my girl. You boys can handle things for an few minutes, can’t you?”

Mike and Sam exchanged glances. “Just don’t forget Nate’s waiting,” Michael said. He awkwardly held Liam in his arms as he maneuvered his way toward the kitchen.

“And don’t change your dress three times.” Michael placed Liam upon the counter and started rifling through the refrigerator.

“And don’t snack,” she replied.

“Were you talking to Sam?” Michael raised a cool eyebrow and popped the lid on his yogurt. He carried it over to Liam, who had discovered the joy of running his toy car about on the marble countertop. Mike paused to watch their child with a little smirk on his face, then waited for Fi’s answer, but she just huffed.

“You’re lucky I love you both, “she said, and walked off.

“What’s stuck in her craw?” Sam came around the other side of the island to kiss the back of Michael’s neck and he instinctively stiffened up.

“Not in front of Liam,” Michael scolded.

Sam shot the kid a quick look askance; he was busy running a tiny semi-truck around the floor of the sink. “He looks busy,” Sam pointed out. “And this is completely natural. What went wrong with the job?”

“Oh, the usual, we couldn’t decide on IDS, she told me I took too long siphoning the gas, I wouldn’t let her fire a rocket launcher next door to a church…”

“Woah woah,” Sam called. “A rocket launcher? That’s some serious heavy duty stuff…” Sam raised an eyebrow. “Was it hers?”

“No,” Michael replied. “One of her contacts sent it. And no, Sam, she’s not going to bring it into the house.” He let Liam drive the car up his fingertip and down around his knuckle, making ‘zoom! Zoom!’ –ing noises while he puttered along. “I didn’t want to risk drawing the police to our location.”

“You could’ve called me,” Sam pointed out.

“I could have, but that meant bringing Liam or leaving him with my mother.” Michael cringed. He and Maddie were doing better as a cohesive unit nowadays, but they still had their tiffs. 

“Are you still ticked at Maddie ‘cause she invited Nate up for a week?”

“You know my brother,” Michael replied. “He’s going to get himself in trouble five minutes after he gets off the plane.”

“Hey, you never know,” Sam said, “He might make it through dessert without getting us all killed.” He earned a stony glare for his smart mouth. “Hey, Mike, you know your ma loves Liam. If we have to leave him with her, she’s going to take great care of the little guy.”

“Oh, she loves him,” Michael said, dry-voiced, practically rolling his eyes at the very idea that his mother completely loved the little rugrat. “And she spent her last visit with him trying to teach him how to call QVC for her.”

Sam responded with a nervous chuckle. “Little guy’s gotta learn what a Thighmaster is somehow.”

“I wanna Flowbie!” shouted Liam, earning the child a distressed glance from Michael.

“Anyway,” Sam said, coming around Michael to both lean against his side and tickle Liam into giggling submission. “All we have to do is put up with Nate and his crew for four hours. Then they’ll go back to his mom’s and we can get on with getting that nice old lady from Maddie’s bingo group her prescription money back.”

“I know, Sam. I’m just fine.” Michael responded by giving Sam a gigantic, plastic, fake grin.

“Stop doing that!” Sam ordered. “It gives me the creeps.”

“Are you showing him your bald spot, Sam?” Fiona emerged from the bedroom in a lovely blue sheath dress with white pumps and a tiny purse.

The men exchanged a wise look. “And what is that about?”

“You changed your dress,” Sam noted.

“I needed a shorter skirt,” she retorted, then poked Sam right in the shoulder. “You need a shave, and you,” she prodded Michael, “need to start the car.”

He checked the dial of his borrowed Rolex. “Guys, we have twenty minutes. Let’s get going.”

Sam and Fi traded their amused glances. “He’s irritatingly punctual,” observed Fiona.

“So what’s new?” She pecked the back of Sam’s neck as he continued, “be with you in a minute. Get Liam in his car seat?”

“Done,” Fiona chirped, taking her son by his hand. “Come on, little man.”

“When do I get to shave?” complained Liam.

“Soon, Padawan, soon,” Sam promised, and gathered the little plastic Charger in his palm on the way out the door. 

*** 

Dinner was an unsurprisingly tense affair. Nate had taken up half the table, with Ruth and Charlie bookending them. He talked endlessly about the new job he had scored a few months back, which, apparently, had been enough to pay for a new nose for Ruth. Sam stared at it blankly, trying to figure out why she’d chosen to tweak it. He’d seen a lot of terrible plastic surgery during his time as a sugar baby for the wealthy, but this was astounding. He had to resist asking how much she’d paid for it.

“Sam,” Fiona said stiffly, “Maybe you could answer that?”

“Huh?” Sam blurted. “Uh…nah, Fi…” he offered her a breadstick. “You look hungry.”

“What he means,” Michael said, eating in the most robotic manner possible, “is that he’d love to take you and the kids to that day spa while me and Nate clean out the garage. Wouldn’t. You. Sam?”

Sam had to take a minute to examine Mike’s expression, then pasting on his best Charles Finley grin. “Sure,” he said. “I could take you to the Golden Palm tomorrow…”

“The Golden Palm!?” she snorted derisively. “We’re going to the Fountain Rock!”

“The…hahha you’re a card, Ruth!” Sam laughed. “The Fountain Rock’s all the way across town and it costs twice as much as the Golden Palm.” And way out of their familial price range.

Ruth preened at them, looping her arm around Nate’s shoulder. “ Don’t worry about it, if you can’t pay your way, honeybunch and me are loaded to the gills.” 

“Nate’s gone into real estate,” Maddie said proudly. 

Nate gave them all a winning grin. “I flipped five houses in a year!”

“And nobody died?” Fiona asked, earning her a pointed glare from Michael. “I need more wine!” she chirped, and poured herself and Madeline two enormous glasses. 

“So anyway, while you guys get your toes polished and your shoulders waxed…” He gave Sam a pointed look that forced Sam to choke on his steak and hunch protectively closer to his plate. “Me and Mike’ll be mucking out all the crap from ma’s garage.”

“I don’t remember volunteering for that,” Michael said. 

Sam mentally scrolled through their Rolodex and tried to pull up relevant dates, searching for a magi bye that would rescue Michael from his ensuing date with tedium. They had to meet with Mike’s mom’s friend in the next two days, and Liam had a Parent-Teacher night coming up, but they were otherwise clear for the week. He might have considered lying, but SEALS do not lie. 

Spies, on the other hand. .. “I’d love to, Nate, I really, really would…but ugh, I think Liam has a dentist’s appointment on that afternoon.”

“Oh Michael, we told you we’ll take him – it’ll be a quick trip from the dentist’s office to the spa and back to Madeline’s house.” Fiona speared an ivory chunk of mahi-mahi onto her fork and plunked it between her lips. “You need all the time you can get with Nate; he comes up here so rarely now that he and Ruth have such a lovely family.”

She cast her eyes upon Charlie, who sat busily picking his nose. Then gave an even wider smile to Madeline. “We’ll have a wonderful time together.”

Sam heard the vague threat in her voice and choked on his steak.

He felt Liam’s pudgy hand patting his chest while Mike delivered a single blow to the middle of Sam’s back, dislodging the offending bit of meat. When his eyes stopped watering her heard Liam’s scolding tones. “Little bites, papa,” he said, turning back to his burger.

Sam cracked open an eye. Charlie sat watching him mutely.

He was too polite to say it, but the little guy was giving him a major case of the creeps.

 

*** 

One round of choruses at the nearest Chuck E. Cheese later and Michael was tucking a sticky, dizzy Liam into his bed back at the loft.

When he bent over to smooth the child’s ruddy hair back from his cheeks, he heard his tiny voice pipe up. “Dad? Why doncha wanna spend time with Uncle Nate?”

From the mouths of babes. Michael winced but didn’t stop stroking his son’s hair. “Do you remember the story your mom told you about the hen who wanted to bring her harvest in, but none of the other animals would help her, so she had to do it all by herself?” Liam nodded. “Well, Uncle Nate’s Mr. Bouncy Bunny. He’s always running around, rushing from place to place and from idea to idea, and he never ever takes the time to think out the consequences of his actions. Now, I’m like the hen – whatever I say I’m going to do, I do.”

Liam considered that quietly. “So that means he can’t have any of our cornbread?” 

“More like Welfare Walrus gives him all the cornbread he needs,” Michael grumbled. And Madeline – he was well aware of the fact that his mother slipped Nate and Ruth a few hundred a month whenever she thought he wasn’t looking. “They’ll all be fine.”

“But what if he needs you to help him mow the lawn? The snakes might get him and eat him all up!”

“He doesn’t have a lawn,” Michael deadpanned, mentally taking ‘lawn’ out and replacing it with ‘guys who like spending money on horsies too much.’”

“Ohhh.” Liam rolled over. “You should take him on a ride.”

Michael paused. “Tell your grandma you’re not allowed to watch the Godfather either.”

“Nooo!” whined Liam. “Al Paciiinooo!”

“Listen to your dad,” Michael said, lightly chucking him under the chin. 

Liam mumbled something into his pillow before he started sleeping and Michael beat a retreat to the bedroom. Michael donned his sunglases as he turned toward the hallway; unsurprisingly, there stood his lovers.

“And you said you wouldn’t be a good father,” Fiona crowed.

“Anyone who doesn’t feel or beat their kid up is a good father,” Michael declared. He carefully closed the door to Liam’s room while both Sam and Fiona protested, but he believed that truth with every bone in his body.

****

“Are we there yet?” 

Sam winced at Charlie’s piercing whine. The drive to the spa was an incredibly short one but seemed to be taking forever thanks to the congested drive-time traffic. “Almost, Charlie,” Sam said, teeth gritted.

“We could have avoided this if you’d’ve let me drive,” Fiona glowered.

Sam had a ready answer. “No way, sister! Nobody but me’s driving the Chuckwagon.” That was Sam’s nickname for his hand-saudered, scavenged and automated car, a souped-up station wagon with a Porchelike exterior that he had hand-crafted as a sign to his devotion to the family. It was, in short, party on the outside, family on the inside – much like his life nowadays.

“Sam…” Fiona’s hand snuck over the cupholder between them and rested upon his thighs. “I’m not your sister.”

The stroking and squeezing were both entirely welcome – just not at this particular moment. “Not in front of the kids,” he breathed.

“Uh…?” Ruth muttered, pointing at an underlit sign that they’d just coasted by, “Sam, I think you missed the offramp.”

Sam hauled the car to a stop, cursed, and pulled the world’s fastest u-e in an attempt to get the car aimed in the right direction. That rocketed the car’s occupants against each other like pinballs set loose in a dryer.

“Did you guys drive stock cars before you settled down?” Sam’s confused silence seemed to answer Ruth’s question and they lapsed into uncomfortable wordlessness until the boys started fighting over plastic dinosaurs in the back seat. Fiona pried them apart with a glare.

When they finally reached the spa, Ruth enthusiastically arranged for two Swedish massages, one for herself and one for Fiona, and they went off for a therapeutic mineral bath with nary a thank-you to Sam (well, Fiona did pinch his behind on her way to the door, but that was an everyday occurrence). Sam and the boys were handed passes and generally shepherded out the back door, toward the spa’s immense in-ground pool.

Sam brought both kids to the locker room near the back of the water slides, where he temporarily lost himself in the minutiae of getting the boys into their suits, putting sandals and coating them with sunblock. By the time he had applied his own sunblock and donned his own trunks, the boys were nearly jumping out of their skins in their eagerness. He shooed them outside and they raced to jump into the deep end.

“Come on, Papa!” called Liam.

“I’ll be right here watching - you boys have fun.” He was already staking out a comfortable-looking and heavily-shaded lounge chair nearby.

“Whatt’re you going to do?” asked Charlie.

Sam grinned and ambled over to the chair. “Uncle Sam’s got a date with mister sunshine,” he said.

“Your dad is really weird,” Charlie proclaimed.

Liam took offense immediately. “MY dads are spies.

“Don’t fight,” Sam ordered, and slung himself out over the plush seat. “Frederico,” he said, skimming the nearby waiter’s guest tag. “Trios mojitos por favor?”

He let out a sigh of relief as his old bones relaxed. Maybe this afternoon would be a cakewalk after all.

He only hoped Michael was having as good of a time of it over at his mom’s place.

*** 

“Hey bro,” shouted Nate from the deepest bowels of Madeline’s garage, “Fluffy Angel Collection: keep or dump?”

Michael raised an eyebrow at the profusion of tiny winged creatures nestled in Nate’s hand; they’d been sitting out in the garage since Sam had blown up Madeline’s sun porch seven years before. “Keep. Maybe we can talk mom into putting them all back up again.”

Nate shrugged, dumping the plaster figurines out onto a spare card table stationed under the workbench. “She’s collecting Jolly Jingles now.”

“Great.” Michael gritted his teeth against the invective he wanted to unload upon his brother’s head; the afternoon thus far had been nothing if not a Clinique in the differences between the two of them.

Nate was less of a mess than he had been once upon a time, but Michael couldn’t allow himself to relax. There was always another shoe to fall where Nate was concerned, and the precariousness of his existence weighed upon Michael’s conscious like an iron bar. 

“So, bro – as soon as we’re done in here, why don’t we head out for some coffee and I can show you everything you need to know about that little investment I was talking about earlier.”

“Right,” Michael said. “I’ll…get right on it.”

He met the eyes of a frowning Nate. “Mike, I know you’re not the most emotional guy in the world…”

“How nice of you to notice,” Michael remarked dryly. 

“….But I really want your support on this. We’ve been doing honest, good business, and we’ve been flipping houses left and right at a great profit.” He stuffed a hand in his pocket. “I really want you to join in, bro. You and Fi and Sammy need extra moolah to keep Liam fed – that loft’s got no backyard, and the kids’ going to want to run around with some real trees….”

“We do fine with what we make on cases,” Michael declared. “And if he wants to see trees I’ll take him to ma’s.”

Nate frowned. “You hate it that I’m as successful as you are, don’t you?”

“Hate’s a strong word, Nate.” Michael definitely wasn’t resentful of Nate’s success – he was simply worried about it. 

“You’re jealous that I’ve got a house and a family – and that somebody besides you can take care of Ma, if she had to be taken care of.”

“I’m not jealous, Nate!” He managed to bite his tongue, to keep himself from blurting out “What is there to be jealous about?”

“Then why can’t you just be happy for me?” he wondered.

The question gave Michael brief pause. But he knew why he couldn’t extend proper respect to his brother. “Do you have pictures? Sales receipts? Proof that you’re turning these houses for a profit?”

Nate flipped open his phone, scrolled to several pictures of beautiful houses. Michael allowed himself to believe that it just might be real – that Nate might have turned a real corner for the first time in his life – before he glowered and looked away.

“And watt’re you planning on turning now?”

Eagerly, Nate plunged in, shifting through the hand-held gadget again. “There’s a house in Brentwood Estates. The basement interior is coated with black mold and it’s gonna need a good cleaning, but everything else is all new. It’ll be four weeks of work, tops, then I’ll put it on the market for two hundred thou.”

Michael stared at the picture. “And what would I be doing?”

“You’d be helping me with supplies. And then, when you’re done, you’d get fifty percent of the money.” He eyeballed Michael, trying to gauge his expression, trying to siphon out the right answer.

“And then after that?”

“More houses, more cities.” Nate grinned. “Westen industries is taking off, Mikey! We’re shooting for the stars, and nobody’s gonna stop us from climbing to the top!” 

Those words – so filled with complete pride – were the ones that alerted Michael to the true crux of his brother’s reason for being so very absorbed in the real estate business. “Damn it, Nate – it’s like gambling! You’re just betting houses and property instead of money!”

Nate’s expression could have sliced through a pane of glass – it was a mirror of Michael’s own, untraceable, hard, sharp. “Then let me go.”

Michael frowned at his younger brother. There had never been a time in Nate’s life that hadn’t required a little lift from Michael; he’d been protecting Nate since he was in his cradle. But the younger man’s expression reflected stubbornness, determination, that matched Michael’s own in spades. 

Yet he couldn’t let himself let go. “I can’t do that, for Charlie and Ruth’s sake.”

Nate shook his head, vacating the scene to allow Michael to stew on his lonesome. “Keep playing watchdog, bro. Some of us’re too busy living to worry about staying on the straight and narrow.”

Those words didn’t comfort Michael – but he was stuck, rooted to his spot, as Nate left him in the garage among the wreckage of Madeline’s aborted marriage. 

***  
Fiona’s mind, meanwhile remained refreshingly blank as she and Ruth were treated to full body massages, their aching muscles pounded into shape by determined fingers.

The scent of coconut oil invaded her sinuses and Fiona let out a low, deep sigh. Sam would take perfect care of her son while she loafed aimlessly for awhile; she would, meanwhile, get to relax, to drift peacefully through the nothingness while imagining executing dictators with her bare hands.

“So,” Ruth said abruptly, “how’s tricks with Mikey and Sam, huh?” She clicked her tongue and Fiona’s muscles leaped into another knot. Her masseuse tisked and started kneading more deeply.

“What do you mean by ‘tricks’?” Fiona had a fair idea, but she wanted to be sure of Ruth’s aim before she opened her mouth.

“You know,” Ruth said, letting the word linger in the air. “‘Tricks.’”

Fiona knew what she meant. “Some things aren’t meant to be shared.”

“But we’re sisters,” burbled Ruth. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to know what it’s like.”

“What what’s like?” Fiona’s eyes narrowed, her look dangerous.

Ruth grinned, and her head bobbed back and forth. “Being shared by two big, hunky guys.”

Fiona remained nonplussed – she stared the woman right down, her eyes cool and impossibly calm. “We make love, talk about our cases and argue over who’s going to pick up Liam from karate. We’re very average, you know. The Cleavers with ammo.” If she pushed it Fiona was willing to get physical over it – she’d be damned if she had to deal with somebody gawking at her relationship for the thrill of it. Let her look, but let her respect the untransgressable boundaries between Mike, Fi and Sam and the rest of the world.

“Geesh, sorry for asking!” Ruth muttered. “You’re the one living the dream here.”

“You have Nate. That’s enough of a dream for any woman.” She managed to suggest that without collapsing into laughter, to her mild relief.

Ruth shrugged. “I love Nate plenty, but sometimes a gal has to dream. Keep the homefires burning, y’know?”

“Just as long as that burning isn’t contagious,” Fiona remarked. And then – in the distance- she heard it. A soft popping sound.

A gunshot.

She rolled toward Ruth, covering her with her body and knocking them both to the floor. 

When Fi glanced down at Ruth’s expression, the woman was grinning. “Kinky.”

“This isn’t a pass!” Fiona hissed. “That’s gunfire. We have problems!” Fi reached up toward the top of the massage table and pulled down her little red clutch – a tiny gun rolled out and onto her towel-clad lap. 

“What about the boys?” Ruth hissed out. “What are we going to do?”

Fiona’s eyes shot from Ruth’s stricken face to the line of cupboards. “Don’t ask questions!” She crawled to them and frantically jimmied the lock open before shoving Ruth inside. She had just enough time to close it and rush back to the table, pitching herself face-down upon it to feign sleep, when the door swung open.

She followed the rapid patter of their Spanish. The rom was empty except for the ‘white chick’ in this room. They should check her purse to see if she had anything worth pawning before icing her; no they should take her for ransom, because she might be worth twice what her purse might yield. Fiona’s answer to this was to roll over, flutter her eyes open with all the drama due to a spa princess, then let out a shriek.

“Don’t move,” they demanded, pointing their guns at her. 

“Oh please don’t shoot!” she squeaked, a deep southern accent falling from her pouting lips. There was a rabble of sound from the confused terrorists. “Are those guns!” she squealed, somehow managed to turn her skin several shades paler than it had been, then extended a trembling hand.

Her fingers were slapped away under another burst of Spanish.

“Aww, don’t you fret at me!” she burbled. “I’m a regular ol’ gal on a beautifyin’ weekend. Just trying to soak in a little culture and warmth before my hubby picks me up.” Fiona grew quiet and scooted toward them, her eyes lighting up with mock-innocent excitement. “ Are y’all part of the big mystery weekend they’re throwing ‘round here?” She closed her eyes tightly and pressed her wrists together. “Well, take me away! I’m all yours!” 

Another excited burst of language, the firm, enthusiastic patter just intense enough for Fiona to keep track of; then one of them grabbed a towel to bind Fiona’s wrists up with. It was just the distraction she’d been waiting for, and once they were looking away from her face she struck out. Two fists to their genitals, two more to their adam’s apples, and two well-placed zip ties and improvised towel gags later and Fiona had two unconscious jewel thieves in her grip – as well as a uniform to sneak herself and Ruth out of the building. 

Ruth took one look at the two unconscious men and Fiona’s revolutionary chic outfit and said, “camo green past Labor Day?”

“Shut up and get dressed.” She had already donned a flack jacket and a pair of pants – double-belted to fit her slender frame. After checking the specs and heft of the gun she’d selected, Fi shoved it into her waistband, then offered the other gun to Ruth, who flinched.

“Take it, you might need it!” The piece dangled stubbornly from her hand.

“But I’ve never shot anything in my life…”

“You’ll be a quick study,” Fiona declared. “As will these boys when they get into a real combat situation. Wesson 12s? Really?”

She herded her quasi sister-in law through the back doorway, sending them both on a mission to save the boys.

**** 

When Sam heard the long series of gunshots echo out through the pool area, he went into SEAL mode automatically. Throwing himself into the pool, he then gathered the boys together and herded them under the pool’s manmade waterfall. He knew there was a deep recess within the waterfall that would be a pocket of air that would keep them afloat and protected – thanks to personal pre-family man experiences and explorations that he hoped the boys wouldn’t ask about. A few moments later they were huddled against the chilly artificial rocks, waiting out the suddenly tense atmosphere. 

“Whatt’re those sounds, papa?” Liam had automatically turned toward Sam for comfort, and he found himself holding the child in a tight cradle while waiting for the noise outside to cease.

“Remember,” Sam whispered, “when me and mama and daddy go outside to shoot our guns?” Liam nodded. He and Mike and Fi had avoided sugarcoating much of their lives for Liam’s sake, in the off-chance that he had to protect himself against unnamed forces of darkness. “Those men are shooting their guns. But they aren’t playing target practice, kiddo.”

Liam’s nose wrinkled. “They have reaaallly bad aim.”

Sam opened his mouth to make a sarcastic remark, but beside him Charlie started to freak out a little. “Where’s my mommy?”

Sam grabbed the boy by his shoulder. “Your mamma’s fine. She’s with Aunt Fi – and trust me when I tell ya, kid, the Russian Army couldn’t outgun that little fire cracker.”

Charlie nodded and kept watching the water rain down over their heads. To Sam it was a form of torture in the Chinese variety, though the Chinese had never thought to include missing relatives in their secret-gathering missions. He did the only thing he could do, encumbered by the children as he was; keep treading water and maintain the faith that Fi, wherever she was, had already taken control of the situation.

*** 

Michael’s deep frown marred his features as he bent over his father’s tools. He loathed having to keep them around, but they had been useful on missions before, and they’d likely be useful on missions again. His mother had tried to convince him to be more generous with Frank in light of the information they’d learned recently, but a dead man’s promise to turn over a new leaf, stay sober and make it all up to his abused children carried as much balm as a piece of sandpaper for Mike. He couldn’t forgive a dead man any more than he could forgive the now-incarcerated or deceased people who had participated in his burn – even though, if he were forced to admit it aloud, he’d have to say that he was far better off for having been burned than having not been burned. He turned a wrench over and over in his hands. The wages of sin were heavy ones, no matter for whom he was forced to pay.

“What did you say to your brother?”

His mother’s voice, however, still had the power to make him blinch and move very carefully over the surface of what ailed him. “He was trying to convince me to invest in his latest mission, and I told him I wanted to be careful.” Then, to his hands, “he didn’t take it well.”

“Michael Westen, you should be ashamed of yourself! How many times has Nate taken time out to help you out of a jam?”

Michael had to bite back a sharp reply that would let his mother know just how valuable Nate’s ‘help’ tended to be, but somehow he stopped himself from going overboard and uttering the truth at the crux of it all. “Plenty of times. But Nate’s got a tendency to involve me without asking my permission, ma; it’s a bad habit that keeps getting him in trouble. So I thought I’d try to break him of it.”

“The only thing breaking here are your brother’s hopes and dreams!” Madeline announced, swiftly falling into rhetoric, sprinkling sparks and ash across the floor. “Why won’t you just humor him?”

“Because humoring him will cost me money we don’t have. Ma, it’s not like it was back when we were little kids. You can’t make me play with little Nate if I don’t want to.”

And that’s when Madeline Westen pulled out the only hunk of Kryptonite she possessed, exploited the sole chink in her son’s Achilles-like armor. 

She started crying.

Michael cringed. “Ma…”

“He’s trying so hard,” she mumbled, wiping her eyes against the back of her free hand. “Have you seen those houses he’s flipped? For the first time in his life he’s making an honest living, and you’re trying to discourage him from going on…”

“Ma, I’m not trying to hurt Nate! I’m just trying to keep him from leaping into an empty swimming pool feet first. I don’t want him to get hurt, that’s all.”

Madeline shook her head. “All I know is that the only thing Nate wants – the only thing he’s ever wanted his whole life –was to impress you.” She stubbed her cigarette out on a box half-filled with memorabilia. “You need to give him another chance, Michael. One day he might be all you have left on this planet.”

That wouldn’t be true for Michael - not. But he could see his mother’s point. He knew Madeline wanted the comfort of knowing her boys would get along well without her, and that he was impeding her sense of peace through his sheer willfulness.

“Okay, ma,” Michael grumbled. “I’ll have a talk with Nate.” He moved the box, retrieving her extinguished cigarette from the box. “Where did he go?”

“Down to the beach. He told me he had a few errands to finish.”

This sparked alarm deep within Michael’s soul. What man on vacation has errands to attend to? But he passed on a smile and started making plans. “I’ll go find him.” He had gassed up the Charger that morning, and would have plenty of spare fuel just in case things had gotten a little bit hairy for his brother.

His first stop was a betting parlor in Coral Gables.

**** 

Fiona and Ruth had managed to creep their way toward the nexus of the armed men’s chain of command by simple sneakiness; they had cut a hole in the ladies’ room wall by manipulating a crack in the plaster to create a nearly-invisible divot. The thieves had taken over the spa’s office and were prowling through an oversized safe at the back of the room. A part of Fiona was rather impressed by their cool-headed ability to breach the spa’s security - it had taken them less than an hour to freeze the lock, break the digital key on the pad and start pouring the spa’s clientele’s diamonds all over the floor. But the other part of her, the part that wasn’t a safe-cracking ex-IRA member with a penchant for jewelry, the part of her that was an outraged mom and wife whose primary concern was the safety of her family, was plotting a way to get them out of the spa with minimal damage and a cushion of freedom.

Ruth crouched beside Fiona, eyeballing the strands of jewelry as they emerged from the safe and were deposited in a large burlap bag. “What are they going to do with all of that bread?”

“Sell it on the black market for millions of dollars, and then funnel their gains back into the company stores.” She shrugged to Ruth’s alarmed expression. “Boys like these don’t’ have much imagination,” Fiona said. She’d met many a man just like those kneeling kids back in Ireland, and they hadn’t been particularly quick on the draw back then either.

“What are we going to do?” Ruth sounded desperate, and Fiona extended her hand , grabbing onto Ruth’s cold, clammy fingers and trying to silence

Fiona quickly sized up their options. “We could keep quiet, wait until they leave, then go grab the boys and give security a few choice descriptions on our way home.”

It sounded far too safe, and Ruth cringed as she prepared herself to receive Fiona’s answer. “But what do you want to do?” 

Fiona lifted her shoulders. “I’m holding a machine gun. And I feel like shooting a machine gun.”

Ruth cringed and Fiona sighed. “I’ll make this quick, okay?” 

Two minutes later, she’d managed to create a powder charge using a light bulb and a bunch of common household cleansers. Ruth sat by in amazement as she topped herself by creating a smoke bomb using ammonia, wetting a piece of paper towel and handing it to Ruth to ward against the blowback.

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” observed Ruth.

“We’re going to live longer than they will,” Fiona said, plunging the tubing she’d salvaged by twisting apart the back of an out-of-service toilet through their peephole. “Which is a form of victory. A lady has to pick her battles.” She instructed Ruth to cover her mouth and turned loose the stopper on her jug of ammonia.

In a minute, noxious smoke flooded the room and, coughing, the men flooded into the hallway, their shouts of confusion ringing throughout the air.

Fiona took swift advantage of their confusion and, creeping to the ladies’ room door, strafed the group with her homemade flashbangs.

In the chaos the men began firing on one another, And Fiona started cutting the rest of the confused men down with glee. Ruth shrieked, ducking and covering her head, but to Fiona the sound was a Valkyrie warcry - her own bullets found homes in only a few of the men, but as they tumbled to the ground, body by body, she felt a supreme sense of superiority and righteousness. They had tried to hurt her boys, and for that they would pay. 

Her greatest victory, heard as she tugged Ruth toward the doorway, was the sound of somebody in the distance shouting ‘retreat’ in Spanish.

*** 

Outside, Sam cackled at the sound of confused gunfire, the requests to retreat. “I knew she’d make it!” Then he tapped each boy on the shoulder, told them to take a deep breath, and plunged into the water, swimming across the bottom of the pool toward a cluster of panicking thieves. He made quick work of them, applying liberal use of his fists. The coast was nearly clear when Sam backed into a slim, red-haired little Irishwoman with a gigantic machine gun clenched in her tiny fist.

“Hey, Fi,” he said nonchalantly, then pecked her lips. The chaos had dissolved around them.

“How are the boys?”

Sam glanced at the pool. They were floating in the shallow end, trying to figure out which of them could spit a larger stream of water into the air. “Yep. They’re Westens,” observed Sam.

That seemed to tip something in Fiona’s memory off. “Ruth!”

They later found her hunched in the safest place she could find when she and Fiona had become separated; the floor of the hotel’s gift shop, with a Chanel purse hidden under her blouse.

 

**** 

 

At sunset, Michael found his kid brother hanging out on the beach, staring into the endless lapping warmth of the Atlantic Ocean as it kissed the sandy beach at his feet.

Michael was happier to see the beach than his brother by then; four hours of fruitless searching had left him with tired feet and a dyspeptic opinion of his mother’s bromides. 

“whattya want, Mike?” Nat wondered.

“I came to find you.” And, because he couldn’t admit to his own sense of concern, he added, “mom was worried.”

Nate glowered. “Right. Hope you had fun trying to find me. Lemme guess – you weren’t looking at different beaches when you were running around trying to find me.”

Michael sighed. “I tried, Nate, I tried.” It was all he could say. The effort of believing his brother felt impossibly tough.

“Hey Mike?”

Michael stared into the glinting sunset. “Yes?” 

“Why don’t you give me a year? Just to see how it goes. And if I screw up somehow you can call me on it.”

Michael could only rationalize to himself that Nate and Ruth and Charlie might not have a year; they might have days, months, before the demons that had governed Nate’s life for years suddenly sprang from the bushes and pounced upon them, ruining their burgeoning sense of prosperity and sending them all back down the rabbit hole of substance abuse and gambling debts. But Michael could only leap so far on his brother’s behalf; some things Nate would have to learn how to do himself. It was something his mother had tried to tell him ages ago, something he’d been in full-blown denial about for years, but heaven help him, it was the truth. But he smiled and shrugged.

“And if you screw up,” Michael declared, “I’ll be waiting.”

The threat was blunt. Nate gulped, nodded his head, and stood up. “I’ll make you proud, Mikey.”

“I hope you do,” he said. It was as close as Michael would, or could, ever get to admitting that his brother might just lick his demons someday.

 

*** 

Michael barely raised an eyebrow when a waterlogged Sam, a fatigue-wearing Fiona, and a sleeping and sunburned Liam crossed the threshold into the loft. Michael had become a master of ignoring the outlandish in favor of the best parts of his wild, yet tame new life. He slathered his son with aloe, agreed to help Fiona buy a new outfit, and helped Sam dry off…which led to the three of them tumbling into bed.

An hour later, he grinned into Sam’s elbow. “I feel like I melted.”

Sam pinched his ass. “Nope. Solid as a rock, Mikey.”

“How did things go with Nate?” Fiona asked, as Michael played with her hair.

“We’ve reached an understanding,” he declared, then kissed her ear. “It’s a secret. Tell me what happened at the spa.”

“It’s a secret,” Fi said.

“I have ways of finding out what I need to know,” he pointed out, squirming in Sam’s grip deliberately.

Sam’s voice pealed out in a breathless growl. “That’s what I get for lying down with spies,” he mock-complained, but he was grinning.

The three of them took what they’d learned that day to the grave with them – but that didn’t stop them all from collectively wondering about the hopes and fears, and how that drive had bound them all more strongly together.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfiction uses characters from **Burn Notice** , all of whom are the property of the **USA Network**. No money was gained from the writing of this fanfiction and all are used under the strictures of of the Berne Convention.


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